NFL Power Rankings: Week 11

The best day of the year is here! Except for maybe the Super Bowl, there is not a better day for football fans than Thanksgiving. Think about it, you get to spend the whole day stuffing your face full of turkey while watching three straight football games on TV. So put on your loosest pants and fill up your plate – happy Thanksgiving everyone! And as always, don’t forget you can now make your own rankings with our new Power Rankings Builder on the right side of the page. Click save to submit your own rankings and see how they stack up against mine!

Good teams are supposed to roll over inferior competition, and New Orleans got the job done against the Bucs in Week 11 – especially in the red zone. In five trips inside Tampa Bay’s 20 yard line, the Saints came away with five touchdowns to pad their league-leading red zone touchdown total. Up next, a slightly stiffer test: a Monday night match-up with Tom Brady and the Pats.

Can anybody stop the charging Chargers? San Diego has ripped off five straight wins and sits in first place for the first time this season. With Kansas City and Cleveland up next, the Chargers should be 9-3 heading into their next challenging game, a Week 14 match-up with the Cowboys.

While it didn’t seem like a major injury, Kurt Warner’s blow to the head could be the biggest wild card in the NFC playoff race. In Week 11, with Warner in the game, the Cards jumped out to a 21-3 lead. When Matt Leinart came in to replace the injured Warner, the Cardinals were outscored 10-0 by the one-win Rams.

Week 11 was an absolutely terrible loss for the Bengals. When everyone else in the AFC North lost, it looked like a gimme that Cincy would beat the lowly Raiders and grab control of their division. Four turnovers later and the Bengals are still only one game ahead of the Steelers.

The Steelers poor offensive line play finally caught up to them. Now Big Ben is Banged Up Ben heading into a key match-up against the Ravens that could go a long way towards determining the defending champs’ playoff hopes.

The saying goes, “You are what your record is.” So I guess the Cowboys are a good team. Still, scoring two touchdowns over the course of two games doesn’t exactly make me think Dallas is going to be a force in December and January.

After cutting Steven Hauschka, the Ravens new kicker, Billy Cundiff , had a solid debut for Baltimore with five field goals. The problem is, he attempted six field goals and his team lost by two points to prolong the team’s 2-5 slide.

The beauty of starting out 5-0 is that you can go on a four game losing streak and still head into December above .500. It’s a good thing they stopped their skid now, too, seeing as the G-Men have Denver, Dallas, and Philadelphia in the next three weeks.

Since the Titans were embarrassed by the Pats 59-0 in Week 6, they have outscored their opponents 125-74 and ripped off four straight wins. Is it possible that Tennessee can run the table and finish 10-6? With Arizona, San Diego and Indy still on the schedule, I say it’s not likely, but it will be fun to watch.

A Ricky resurrection has the ‘Fins riding high again. Miami didn’t miss a beat with Ricky Williams filling in for the injured Ronnie Brown, as the Dolphins stuck to their gameplan of controlling the clock. Miami has now won the time of possession battle in seven out of their ten games this season.

Just when everyone started to believe in the Texans, they drop two consecutive division games to fall back to .500. I don’t want to blame the losses on one player, but Kris Brown has missed two consecutive last-second, game-tying field goals in the last two weeks that could prove costly to Houston’s playoff hopes down the stretch.

Matt Ryan has lost his touch on the deep ball, as his yards per completion have dropped by more than a yard per pass from last season. With Michael Turner out, Ryan will have to make more plays for the Falcons to jump back up over .500.

It’s simple to figure out how to beat the Panthers: put the game in Jake Delhomme’s hands. While Delhomme has cut down on his errors, the Panthers are still 0-5 when he throws the ball more than 30 times in a game.

The collapse is complete for the Broncos, who got whupped by the Chargers and knocked out of first place for the first time all season. Everything started crumbling when the defense fell apart. In their six wins, Denver allowed 11 points per game. In their four losses, they’ve given up 29.25.

Matt Cassel is finally showing signs of being the franchise quarterback the Chiefs thought they were getting. In his last three games, Cassel has thrown four touchdowns and one interception while the Chiefs have gone 2-1.

Alex Smith has become the master of the “close but no cigar” game. Since Smith took over under center in San Fran, Smith has put up decent numbers (1,035 yards, 9 TDs) but he’s only won one game out of five.

Five losses in their last six games have the Bears reeling and the sputtering offense is to blame. Take out the Bears 48-point outburst against a weak Lions defense and Chicago is averaging fewer than three touchdowns a game.

If I were a Bills fan, I’d turn the TV off after the third quarter. The Bills have lost some excruciating games with hardly any time left on the clock and have been outscored overall in the fourth quarter 109-40.

The Raiders offense woke up…for at least a minute. The team that averaged 9.8 points per game coming into Week 11 exploded for 10 points in the last 41 seconds of the game to steal a win from the Bengals.

Congratulations to Steven Jackson on becoming the first Rams running back ever to record five consecutive 1,000 yard rushing seasons. And since I’m a positive guy, that’s all I have to say about St. Louis.